Vengeance Road Read Free Page B

stay.

    The horses sleep, but I don’t. All night I keep a hand on my pistol and my senses sharp. Only thing I hear is Pa chiding in my ear.
Wickenburg, Wickenburg, Wickenburg. If anything ever happens to me, you go see Abe in Wickenburg.
    I think I hate Abe, and I ain’t even met him yet.

Chapter Three
    I ride south with the dawn
and don’t look back. Not at the burnt house or Granite Creek or even the streets of Prescott as I tear through ’em.
    Soon I’m entering the Bradshaw Mountains, the world going green round me. The shrubs get denser and the trees more vibrant. Pines sprout up as we climb, thicker and taller and making it difficult to see if there’s trouble waiting ahead.
    The trail I’m following has been used by prospectors and settlers traveling to Prescott for well over a decade, plus the stagecoach. Freighters come by this pass too, taking goods over the mountains by wagon once they unload from steamboats ’long the Colorado. I seen ’em winding into town like sluggish snakes—Murphy wagons loaded up with barrels of whiskey, and bags of flour and salt. It’s been a while since Apache raids were a guaranteed occurrence, and I can’t remember the last time a freighter lost a haul to a burnt wagon on account of Indians, but I still got a hand ready to draw my pistol or rifle. This is the kind of route where unsuspecting folk can get cleaned dry.
    â€œYou’ll let me know if you hear something I don’t, won’t you, girl?” I says, patting Silver ’long the neck. I got my chest wrapped tight again, and I’m hoping I look like a boy to anyone I cross. Not that one boy can’t be gutted as easily as one girl, but a girl trekking through the Bradshaws by her lonesome sure’s gonna stick out more. Hell, I’ll be safest pretending I’m a boy the rest of my life. The frontier ain’t for the faint of heart, and it certainly ain’t kind to women. Sometimes I think the whole world’s ’gainst us.
    I look back at Libby, who’s trailing me and Silver with her head somewhat droopish. She’s older now—Pa had her longer than he had me—but I weren’t ’bout to leave her behind to starve. Besides, her and Silver get on like a pair of old maids. If Libby makes it over these mountains, I think she’ll fare all right on the plains.
    The trail winds higher, and by midday I ain’t seen nothing but a shining view of the downward slope of the Bradshaws and the valley that waits to the south. The Hassayampa leads the way, cutting through shrubs and brambles, looking dry from my perch even when I know right well the water don’t go underground till closer to Wickenburg.
    Hassayampa.
The river that flows upside down.
    I ain’t fond of having to follow it. Indians like the water. Crooks like the water.
Trouble
likes the water. The sooner I get to Wickenburg, the better, and it ain’t a short ride. I’ll be lucky if I make it to Walnut Grove by dusk. Still, I ain’t pushing the horses hard through this pass. Not where the trail is rough and roots crop up and a busted ankle will strand me like prey for vultures.
    The descent is even slower than the climb. The heat’s rising and the landscape’s drying up. Shrubs start to outnumber the pines, and soon the land’s looking more parched than fertile. When the trail levels out ’longside the Hassayampa, the dry creek bed’s twice as wide as the narrow trickle of water running south. I let the horses drink while I eat a bit of jerky from my pack.
    When I look back at the mountains, I swear I see someone crouched on the trail, so far off that they’re nothing but a speck of tanned skin. I pull my rifle from the saddle scabbard and the figure lurches upright, disappearing into the vegetation, graceful like a deer.
    I click my tongue for Libby and turn Silver south with hair raised on the back of my neck. How long were that